The jailbreak community is known for having a vast amount of packages that are similar in functionality. Although there are many unique ones, there are much more of them that are similar but with a few major differences. Some are even basically the same with a few differences. Competition is always nice and spurs developers to excel to make their products better than the others. It is very infrequent however that two packages that almost do the same thing are released at the same time. Two recent tweaks WeeSpeeddial and Favorite Contacts for the Notification Center were released virtually at the same time. Both WeeSpeedial and Favorite Contacts for the Notification Center both do similar functions, but differ in a few points.

WeeSpeeddial for Notification offers quick and easy access to phone numbers directly from your Notification Center. Unlike Favorite Contacts for Notification Center, you have to manually add numbers to your list. You do this by going into the settings tab for WeeSpeeddial (Settings->WeeSpeeddial) and hitting "Edit" and the "+." From there, you can just scroll through your contacts and add the respective contacts. If you choose a contact and it doesn't have a phone number, it will give you an error window and let you continue. When you come to a contact that has multiple numbers, it will allow you to choose one or the other. Otherwise, it will just automatically add. Just like Favorite Contacts, you can add profile pictures to your contacts and they will show up in the center (although I don't have any contact pictures).

Also in settings, you have the option of enabling a prompt. When prompt is enabled, a little window will come up after tapping the icon in the Notification Center confirming that you want to call that number. This is great just in case you accidentally tap the button. Here are my pros and cons:

Pros:

WeedSpeeddial adds the type of number (mobile, work, home, etc.) which comes in handy quite often. Favorite Contacts for Notification does not

If you add, delete, or edit a contact that is listed on the Notification Center, there is not need to respring because it automatically performs the change. Favorite Contacts however requires you to respring if you make a change.

Cons:

WeeSpeeddial does not currently hook into the Phone.apps Favorites list. It should soon, however Favorite Contacts already has that feature

Having to go into the Settings to add and remove numbers is somewhat inconvenient. A button inside the Notification Center should be put there so that you can add or delete contacts right from the screen

Adding one number at a time when adding numbers is kind of annoying. Adding an ability to select multiple contacts would be cool

Other than the differences mentioned throughout the post, WeeSpeeddial is a little more expensive, sitting at $1.49. It is compatible with iPhone devices running 5.0+.

Will Homer was able to answer a few of my questions in regards to his work with WeeSpeeddial:

JOSH: What gave you the idea to make WeeSpeedial for NC?WILL:The idea just sort of came to me. When devs first started creating their own NC widgets I saw that a lot of people were writing clones of SBSettings and other similar things and I just decided that I wanted to do something different.

JOSH: Do you have any other packages on Cydia? Or is this you first one? How long did it take for you to make this?WILL:I have 4 or 5 commercial packages and around the same amount of free ones on Cydia, mostly involving app switcher tweaks, so this is not my first app/tweak. This particular app took me around a week to complete. It has actually been in it's current state for a few weeks but I had to wait for a public release of PreferenceLoader for iOS5 before I could give it to a beta tester.

JOSH: You may have noticed that you have a little competition with Favorite Contacts for NC that just came out as well. Your packages do the exact same thing. How are you going to separate yourself from that and make your product better?WILL:Yes I saw that, unfortunate timing I suppose. Right now I'm just thinking about tweaking the design (for example adding endless scrolling) etc. As far as functionality goes I'll probably add SMS support as well as calling and the ability to import your favourites from Phone.app. I'm always open to suggestions for additions to my apps so if there any functionality users want to see I'd love to hear it.

JOSH: Are you working on any other projects that you'd be willing to speak on?WILL:Right now I'm not actively working on any other apps although I do have a few that I have started and then taken a break from. While developing WeeSpeeddial I made a prototype of a version that adds contacts as an icon on the SpringBoard as opposed to the NC. I also have a couple of tweaks for Safari that are mostly finished: one that adds the ability to view page source directly in MobileSafari and another that integrates a ReadItLater client and the ability to save links to RIL/Instapaper into MobileSafari.

Will was gracious enough to do a 5-copy giveaway as well for our readers here at ModMyi. Here's how you can enter:

The winners of the giveaway have been picked. If you did not get a mention from me on Twitter or Google+, sorry! But don't worry - there's much more to come!